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From pre-race, through the official finish – get your on demand look at runners crossing the finish line in the 2019 United Airlines NYC Half.

NEW YORK, New York (WABC) — Thousands of participants were off and running Sunday in the 2019 United Airlines NYC Half.

The 14th running of the race took more than 25,000 runners on a 13.1-mile park-to-park tour from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

The race starts in Prospect Park and passes through iconic New York City landmarks, including Grand Army Plaza, the United Nations, Grand Central Terminal and Times Square.

Runners end the race near the iconic TCS New York City Marathon finish line in Central Park.

The men’s winner was Ethiopia’s Belay Tilahun, while Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei won in the women’s division.

The 24-year-old Tilahun completed the course in 1:02:10, overtaking Eritrea’s Daniel Mesfun, who led for the majority of the race but finished six seconds behind.

Jepkosgei, the world record-holder in the half marathon, won her first-ever solo race in the United States in 1:10:07. Mary Ngugi, also of Kenya, finished one minute later in second.

Daniel Romanchuk and Tatyana McFadden, both of the United States, won the wheelchair divisions.

The event featured a star-studded professional athlete field with nine Olympians and nine Paralympians, including all four defending champions in Ben True (USA), Buze Diriba (ETH), Ernst van Dyk (RSA), and Manuela Schr (SUI), along with 2018 Boston Marathon champion Des Linden (USA) and Olympic silver medalist Paul Chelimo (USA) who made his much-anticipated debut at the half-marathon distance.

In addition to the professional athletes and 25,000 citizen runners, nearly 1,000 youth runners participated in 1200-meter heats through Times Square in the Rising New York Road Runners race at the United Airlines NYC Half.

NYRR is celebrating 20 years of providing free youth running programs, serving nearly 250,000 youth across the country annually through Rising New York Road Runners.

Watch the United Airlines NYC Half Highlight Show:

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Expansion on existing routes—such as London to Denver, added a year ago—is less risky. “We served London from all of our hubs except Denver,” Quayle says. “So I know the prevailing fare.”

Gupta, 35, used the same process when deciding to add a daily flight from Bismarck to Chicago, which started last June. “We know that on Bismarck to Denver, we get these fares . . . and we know American flies it, so we have some historical data available there.”

The analysis then expands to include a range of financial, operational and other considerations.

“We look at profitability, passenger makeup, what kinds of destinations we can serve via Chicago, and what share will we cannibalize on our existing flights?” Gupta says. “You have opportunity cost: If you’re flying one route, you’re not flying another.”

Airport characteristics also come into play. Gate availability constraints and aircraft movement restrictions limit options in places like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Newark, while midcontinent hubs allow more flexibility, Gupta says.

Over the past two years, United added 28 routes from Chicago, where it operates about 650 flights a day, its busiest airport.

“We have to determine whether adding frequency (to an existing route) or adding a new market is better,” Gupta says. “That’s where strategy comes in: What are we trying to do in Houston, Chicago and Denver?”

Even if all other factors line up, United can’t add a destination unless it has enough of the right kind of planes available to serve the route. “The plane has to be the right size and in the right location,” Gupta says.

The decision to start a route today can be dictated by what aircraft was ordered several years ago. When United wanted to launch a route between San Francisco and Tahiti, it needed a Boeing 787-8. One became available when United took delivery of a larger 787-9 that replaced the 787-8 it was using on an existing route.

“A new 787-9 comes in, and it can fly Munich to San Francisco—that frees up the older 787-8, and we can start a new route,” Quayle says.

Having the right plane doesn’t always mean you can fly it where you want to go. To add Houston to Sydney, one of the longest nonstop flights in the world at nearly 8,600 miles, much of it over water, United needed special government certification to fly on one engine for up to 240 minutes in case of emergency, nearly double the industry standard.

Other routes might require permission from countries such as Russia or China to fly over their territory. “We work with our government affairs team, who coordinates with FAA, DOT and the State Department,” Quayle says.

NETWORK RULES

Eventually, it comes back to the map.

“The network drives almost everything—gates, access to facilities, de-icing equipment and manpower,” Gupta says. “We need pilots, flight attendants and technicians, or we can’t fly.”

The network matters in another crucial way. When United added a flight from Los Angeles to Missoula, Mont., last year, planners also were looking at its Denver hub, which United already serves from Missoula. United figured that enough L.A. passengers bound for Denver would be willing to connect through Missoula in return for a lower fare than they would pay for nonstop service. From Denver, United can fly passengers on to 60 other domestic destinations. Therefore, route planners estimated the L.A.-Missoula flight would be 80 percent full, making it profitable.

“It’s kind of mind-boggling,” Gupta says. “When we look at it, it’s about combining the fares: How much does it cost us to fly that passenger? It’s not just how much is it to fly that segment?”

With all those variables, planners look at far more routes than they can add.

“For every route we announce, we’re analyzing 10 or 20 routes behind it,” Quayle says, declining to name the also-rans. “Maybe we didn’t think the market was big enough, or we didn’t have the right aircraft or the slots for arrival or departure.”

Still, it doesn’t always work. United canceled service from O’Hare to Champaign after a year because demand didn’t meet expectations. United dropped a Los Angeles-to-Singapore flight just as quickly. “We were going to be the only carrier flying nonstop from L.A. to Singapore,” Quayle recalls. “It was a great idea: The market was huge, it was a premium market.”

It also was crowded with Asian carriers flying much larger planes on connecting routes. “They can discount like crazy and charge $200 round-trip. We didn’t think they’d do what they did.”

United replaced the route with a second flight from San Francisco to Singapore. “These are $150 million to $200 million planes, so you can’t be wrong too often,” Quayle says. “If you’re wrong a lot, you’re not going to be in this job too long.”

MANHATTAN, New York City (WABC) — As Vanessa Diservio prepares for the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon, she’s not only running for herself — but also to set an example for her students.

The physical education teacher at New York City’s Hudson High School was instrumental in introducing the Rising New York Road Runners program to her students just over two years ago, and since then, she’s seen the program — and the teens — flourish.

“It’s been contagious,” she said. “Students from all grades, all backgrounds, doesn’t matter. They all just want to come out and run.”

And her work ethic has rubbed off on her students.

“This program, it pushes me because I think about the people here that are trying really hard,” Rising NYRR member Vivily Hailey said. “And my teacher herself, she works a lot for this program. And I feel like I owe that to all these people that care so much to give my all as much as I do.”

It’s also helping some students come out of their shells.

“I was a little shy, but now I feel like I fit in, like I finally found where I fit in,” Brandon Francis said. “And it’s exercising. I like exercising, so it’s the best of both worlds.”

Diservio noticed the impact.

“His confidence level is through the roof,” she said. “He’s engaged in classes. He feels more comfortable to contribute in other classes besides phys ed. He’s made friends.”

Diservio is being joined on the half-marathon course by one of her students. Adama Samake is running the 13.1-miles race for the first time, thanks to her support, advice and encouragement.

“She’ll sometimes tell me, ‘Oh, you can do anything if you put your mind to it,'” he said. “So it was always like, that moment, every time I’m about to race, I think about it. Like, ‘Oh, you can do it. You can do it.’ I just put everything out of my mind and just push through it.”

Diservio is proud of his progress.

“He was like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know,'” she said. “And I said, ‘There’s no reason why you can’t. Give me one reason why you can’t do it.’ And he said, ‘the money.’ And I said, ‘We’ll take care of that.’ ‘Sneakers.’ ‘We’ll take car of that for you.’ And once he said yes, he’s dedicated his free time, his weekends, his early mornings, to running and training.”

The two will begin the half together, and Diservio said she’ll try to keep up with him for as long as she can — as both are hoping to motivate others.

“I’m trying to inspire the kids that are my age or younger to get running,” he said. “Especially with the New York Road Runners.”

And the long term inspiration could change lives.

“I think that if they can see that, ‘I can run 13 miles,’ you know, then what’s to stop them at their age,” Diservio said.

The United Airlines NYC Half Marathon is this Sunday, March 17. Our coverage begins on Eyewitness News at 6 a.m., with live reports along the route.

Our race coverage begins at 7:10 a.m., streaming live at abc7ny.com. Then stay tuned for the highlights show on Channel 7 at 1 p.m.

CLICK HERE for more information on the race.

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(Reuters) – Air Canada and United Airlines on Friday became the first major carriers in North America to warn of negative impacts on business due to the grounding of Boeing Co’s 737 MAX planes.